Batteries are potentially volatile things, stuffed with electrochemical cells practically humming with electolytes. Every once and a while, then, they’re sure to break down, and companies like Apple do literally everything in their power to make sure it doesn’t happen.

Here’s why. An iPhone 5c that exploded in the pocket of a 13-year-old girl resulted in a fire so severe that she wasrushed to the hospital with second-degree burns.

The iPhone was in the girl’s back pocket at the time, so it appears that the failure of the two-month iPhone might have been due to stress. She may have cracked it sitting down.

As a bigger guy who stuffs his iPhone in his own back pocket, I should probably pay attention to this girl’s misfortune before I set my ass on fire.

Your Honor, I respectfully submit that another explanation for this occurrence exists – the plaintiff is a liar and her pants were already on fire, causing extensive damage to the phone.

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This article says that the girl is thirteen years old, which makes it sound like a different occurence than what happened to a fourteen year old girl to whom other articles refer. But all of the other details are the same.

Are uou sure that she us thirteen, John?

OS2toMAC

Your Honor, I respectfully submit that another explanation for this occurrence exists – the plaintiff is a liar and her pants were already on fire, causing extensive damage to the phone.

I’m sorry, but as you can see, there is no significant elongation of her proboscis. Thus any possible “lies” told by the plaintiff would have been of the variety that, while possibly warming the clothing, would not have initiated ignition.

About the author

John Brownlee is a Contributing Editor. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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